Friday, August 10, 2012

Cannibalism and the Strange Case of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

Cannibalism and the Strange Case of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

Zachary Ramsay

Zachary Xerxes Ramsay

Something had been very wrong in
Great Falls long before the cold winter morning of February 6, 1996, a
Tuesday, the day that 10-year-old Zachary Xerxes Ramsay disappeared on
his walk toward his school, Whittier Elementary, a simple routine that
he had performed many times before. Zach, as his family, friends and
teachers knew him, like just about everyone else in Great Falls, had no
apparent reasons to fear for his safety. To young, carefree Zach, it
was just like any other day as he left his mother’s apartment on the
400 block of Fourth Street North shortly after 7:30 a.m. In all
likelihood, all Zach was concerned about that morning was getting to
school to meet and play with his friends outside before the bell rang.

Appartments where Zach lived with his mother.

As he walked down the street kicking
up snow, he entered an alley as he made the short trip to his school,
located only six blocks away. It isn’t known whether he noticed the man
sitting in the off-white, four-door sedan parked in the alley behind a
house on the 400 block of Fifth Avenue North, with the engine idling.
Zach was a smart kid by all accounts, and it seems reasonable to
presume that he would have hastened his pace toward school or changed
his route if he had noticed the man in the car. That fact, along with
many others, likely will never be known.

Alley Near Zach’s House

What is known is that Zach never
made it to school that fateful day. His friends waiting for him thought
that he must have been sick and stayed at home. He was marked absent
by his teacher that morning after the bell rang, and in keeping with
school policy Zach’s mother was called and notified of her son’s
absence. Soon, one of the biggest stories, not to mention most bizarre,
to hit Great Falls was to break wide open to a stunned public who did
not want to believe the worst. The truth was that they had no idea yet
about the darkness that had befallen their otherwise peaceful and happy
community.

﻿

Missing Child

Zachary Xerxes Ramsay

Zach’s mother, who worked at a
restaurant in town, was of course alarmed by the call from Zach’s
school shortly after ten that morning. Working hard to raise two other
children, ages 5, and 2, while Zach’s father, a U.S. Air Force staff
sergeant, was away serving at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado
Springs, Colorado, Zach’s mother didn’t know which way to turn or even
to whom to turn to at first. Although highly concerned, she did her
best to remain calm and not to panic.

“I wondered if he was skipping school,”
his mother said later. “I went home, he wasn’t there, so I immediately
went to the school….My concern was not to freak out—my concern was to
get as much [information] at that moment as possible.”

Doing the only thing that she could
think of at the time, she searched the neighborhood for her son,
calling out his name and retracing the steps he normally took to
school. But there was no sign of him. Striking out at the school, and
rather than delaying and losing any more precious time, she notified the
police that her son had disappeared. A pair of officers was promptly
sent to her home to take the initial report.

Zach, the worried mother tearfully told
the officers, was not a shy boy. He liked talking to people, and it
would not be unusual if he talked to strangers, but he had been taught
never to get into a car with someone he didn’t know, and he understood
the dangers associated with doing so. Even though his mother had
considered it, Zach wasn’t known to skip school, making it highly
unusual for him not to show up for class on time. Besides, she said,
Zachary was looking forward to going to school that day. He was
scheduled to receive an award for his artwork—he loved art. It was one
of his favorite classes.

Previously there had been only one
problem with him running away, and that had occurred in January, about a
month earlier right after the New Year holiday. However, he was only
gone for about an hour, and, knowing that his mother would be worried
sick about him, he called her from a restaurant and asked her to come
and get him. After all was said and done everyone, including the
police, agreed that it was highly unusual that Zach would just
disappear. Most missing children are located at a friend or relative’s
home, usually within an hour after their absence has been noticed. But
this clearly wasn’t the case with Zachary. No one to whom he was close
had seen him. It was as if he had vanished into thin air.

Search Parties

Zachary Xerxes Ramsay

Zachary’s mother provided a detailed
description of her son to the police, as well as recent photographs.
He was born on December 18, 1985, a week shy of being a Christmas baby.
He was the product of an interracial marriage—his father is black and
his mother is white—and he had a dark complexion with dark hair and
brown eyes. Zach’s mother described her son as 4 feet tall and weighing
approximately 100 pounds. He also had a small scar on his forehead
between his eyebrows, and wore glasses. However, he did not have his
glasses with him that day—he had forgotten them at home. He was also
described as having blotchy skin at the time of his disappearance, and
dimples. When he left for school that morning he was dressed in stone
washed jeans, a football jersey with his surname, Ramsay, on the back,
black high-top tennis shoes, and a blue denim baseball jacket with
green sleeves.

Great Falls Police Department Patch

The Great Falls Police Department
moved swiftly. Their first priority was to try to find the missing
child, hopefully alive. If that effort failed, then they could move
toward finding out what happened to him, and why. For now, everyone
just hoped that Zach would turn up unharmed.

Wasting no time, police officers
mobilized and went door to door in their search for Zach. Neighbors
were asked if they had seen the boy, and were asked to be on the
lookout for him. Residents all over town were asked to check their
outbuildings and garages, anywhere that a child might be able hide out
for a while. The police also checked abandoned vehicles, as well as
vehicles that were only being used infrequently. They searched
Zachary’s school and the school grounds, interviewed his friends, and
questioned members of his family thoroughly, to no avail.

Entrance to Gibson Park

Search parties made up of police
officers and citizens alike searched the banks of the Missouri River at
several points in town, and a massive search effort was conducted at
Gibson Park, a large park located in north-central Great Falls near
where the Missouri River bends gradually eastward, not far from Zach’s
home. Searchers dug through snow banks, and bloodhounds, put onto
Zachary’s scent using the boy’s toothbrush that his mother provided,
searched along the river and through the park as well. The searchers
and their dogs literally hunted for the child, in places all over town
that could be used as a hiding place by a youngster or places that
could be used to dispose of another person’s remains, including garbage
bins. However, there was no sign of the boy.

Gibson Park

A Car in the Alley

Neighbors questioned by the officers who
had gone door-to-door throughout the neighborhood along Zach’s route to
school were eager to help. One of the neighbors interviewed told the
police that he had seen a man parked in the alley directly behind a
house in the 400 block of Fifth Avenue North sometime between 7 a.m. to
7:15 a.m. The neighbor said that the man had been driving a small,
off-white, four-door car.

Alley Near Zach’s House

Later, several members of a family
who resided nearby told the police that they had seen Zach at about
7:30 a.m. when he walked down the alley behind Fifth Avenue North. One
member of that family told the police that Zachary was nearly struck by
an off-white, four-door vehicle as he came out of the alley and
attempted to cross Fifth Street North (in Great Falls, streets run
north and south and avenues run east and west). Another witness told
the police that she had seen Zach walking down the same alley at about
7:30 a.m., leaving little doubt as to the route that the boy had taken
to school that morning.

Yet another witness told the
investigating officers that he had seen Zach at approximately 7:45 a.m.
as he crossed Sixth Street North, and that a man had been following
him. He said that the boy was crying, and that the man appeared to be
upset. The witness provided a sketchy description of the man and, to
the cops looking for the missing child, it now appeared that the
vicinity of where the witness had seen the man following the boy was
where Zach’s trail ended. The problem with that scenario, however, was
the timeframe—it does not take fifteen minutes to walk from the alley
behind Fifth Avenue North, where he was reported as having been seen at
7:30 a.m., to the location at Sixth Street North where he was seen at
7:45 a.m. Of course it was possible that the witnesses had been
mistaken about the times that they had seen Zach, or it was possible
that he had stopped to talk with the man in the car and that, possibly,
had resulted in Zach crying. Zachary’s friends were waiting for him to
arrive that morning before school started, but none of them had a clue
to Zach’s whereabouts when the bell rang at 8:15 a.m.

A Great Falls lithography shop printed
up hundreds of posters with Zach’s photo and a description of what he
was wearing when he left for school that morning. The local newspaper, The Great Falls Tribune,
ran photos of the missing boy and articles about his disappearance the
next day, marking only the beginning of what would become extensive
coverage by that newspaper and other media sources. Later, service men
and women from nearby Malmstrom Air Force Base volunteered on a number
of occasions to search for Zach, to no avail.

A Detective Enters the Case

The Great Falls Police Department

Detective Bill Bellusci, at that
time in his late-thirties and an eighteen-year veteran of the Great
Falls Police Department, was assigned as the lead investigator in
Zachary Ramsay’s disappearance. The assignment brought back vivid
memories for Bellusci who, eight years earlier, and worked the case of
the disappearance and murder of 9-year-old Dolana Clark. Dolana, who
left home on her bicycle, was not seen or heard from again until her
body was found two years later in the Little Belt Mountains, southeast
of Great Falls in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Bellusci, who
had investigated a number of cases involving sex offenders over the
years, hoped that Zachary’s case would turn out differently, but his
gut feelings told him otherwise from the investigation’s outset.

The local FBI office was notified of
Zachary’s disappearance, and Special Agent James Wilson, stationed at
the Great Falls FBI office since 1992, was assigned to provide
assistance to the local police. Since 1996, the FBI was brought in
anytime it was suspected that a child had been abducted, even if the
crime wasn’t obviously an interstate issue. Bellusci, a bespectacled
man with dark hair, a receding hairline and a full mustache, had an
idea about who might have snatched Zach off the street almost
immediately, and he and Special Agent Wilson began pursuing it.

Something had been indeed very wrong in
Great Falls before February 6, 1996, a horror that began with the
arrival barely five years earlier of a man who called himself Nathaniel
Bar-Jonah. From the first day that Zachary Ramsay went missing,
Bellusci was convinced that he knew who was responsible for the child’s
disappearance. Although the state police, the agency responsible for
registering and keeping tabs on sex offenders, had provided Bellusci
with a list of 10 known sex offenders living in Zach’s neighborhood,
Bellusci’s gut feeling told him that the person who had nabbed Zachary
was not on that list. Instead, Bellusci added an eleventh name to the
list, that of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah. Bar Jonah, 38-years-old at the time
of Zachary’s disappearance, had a disturbingly long history of
kidnapping and choking young boys, and the possibility of young Zach
falling victim to Bar-Jonah brought back chilling memories for Bellusci.
Of course, Bellusci also had to consider Zach’s mother as a
suspect—relatives are always suspects in such cases until they can be
ruled out.

A Previous Allegation

In 1993, only a few days before
Christmas, Bellusci had gone out on a call to investigate the alleged
sexual assault of an 8-year-old boy, making it a Christmas that
everyone concerned would have preferred to have forgotten. When the
trail led to Bar-Jonah, Bellusci recalled how Bar-Jonah had denied
fondling the 8-year-old boy and proclaimed his innocence. In that case,
the boy had accused Bar-Jonah, then 35, of fondling him while
Bar-Jonah babysat for his parents, who had gone to Helena, some 120
miles south of Great Falls, for the evening. Although there was a lack
of evidence in the case—it was the boy’s word against Bar-Jonah’s—it
was decided that it should be prosecuted anyway. But when he denied the
accusations to Bellusci, he added a statement that made Bellusci’s
blood run cold, a chilling comment that the detective would never
forget. Bar-Jonah told Bellusci that if he had done what he was being
accused of, he would have killed the boy. Although prosecutors held
out, hoping for a plea-bargain, Bar-Jonah held out as well, and the
case was eventually dropped three years later when Bar-Jonah’s attorney
filed a motion arguing that his client’s right to a speedy trial had
been violated.

“The day Zach turned up missing, I went over to Nate’s place,” Bellusci told a reporter for the Great FallsTribune,
referring to Nathaniel Bar-Jonah. “He wasn’t there. The house was
dark…Bar-Jonah stood out in my mind because I’d worked with him before.
I knew he had been violent before and I knew he was still active.”

Although the statement that Bellusci had
made about knowing that Bar-Jonah was still active was based on a gut
hunch, he was sure that if given enough time he would be able to show
that his hunch was on the mark.

The next day, February 7, 1996, Bellusci
asked two uniformed police officers to return to Bar-Jonah’s home to
question him about Zachary’s disappearance. However, no one answered
the door despite the officers’ repeated knocking, and the house
appeared quiet—almost too quiet. The stillness on the cold winter day
seemed somewhat eerie. Without a warrant they couldn’t force the door
and go in, even though upon reflection they would have liked
to—everything had to be done by the book. With little else that they
could do, the officers placed a business card on the door to
Bar-Jonah’s home asking that he call when he returned. However,
Bar-Jonah never made the call, and the police failed to follow up until
later. By the time the police did in fact follow up on the February 7
visit, Bar-Jonah had seen a lawyer and refused to talk to the police
again. He had “lawyered up,” refusing to talk to them, and there wasn’t
anything they could do about it. In this way, Bar-Jonah’s legal
maneuvering at the time and the fact that many predatory sex offender
laws weren’t on the books yet had temporarily allowed him to slip
through the cracks of a system that was supposed to protect the public.

Massachusetts Roots

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

Bar-Jonah had moved to Great Falls
in 1991 from Massachusetts. Although he had been on probation in
Massachusetts for sex offenses against children, he was not required to
register in Montana as a sex offender. Megan’s Law was still being
debated nationally at the time Zachary Ramsay disappeared, and hadn’t
even been written, much less proposed, by lawmakers when Bar-Jonah
arrived in Montana, and was only an idea that was being bounced around
at that time. Although a national push was on to implement Megan’s Law
state-by-state, it had not been signed into federal law yet by
President Bill Clinton by the time Zach disappeared, and wouldn’t be
until May 17, 1996. Although Megan’s Law was only a couple of months
away from becoming nationally effective, known sex offenders were not
yet required to register with the local police and were not yet part of
an evaluation system designed to determine their overall risk of
re-offending and the level of danger they posed to the community, with
tier 1 offenders being the least risk and tier 3 offenders being the
greatest. Once the tier system was in place, there is little doubt that
Bar-Jonah could have been categorized as anything but a tier 3
offender.

However, because the system was not then
in place, a crack in the system had turned into major hole through
which repeat offenders like Bar-Jonah could fall. No one in Montana
knew, yet, just how sordid Bar-Jonah’s past really was, and it would be
some time before his past caught up with him. “I don’t know if we
dropped it or if we overlooked something,” Great Falls Police Chief Bob
Jones said later regarding the Zachary Ramsay case and Bar-Jonah’s
connection to it. “We were going to get back to it, and we didn’t.”

Perhaps if the police in Great Falls had
known a little more about Bar-Jonah’s prior history in Massachusetts
they would have been more aggressive early on about pursuing him as a
suspect in Zachary’s disappearance. As it turned out, despite
Bellusci’s suspicions and gut feelings about Bar-Jonah, the
investigation became chaotic and focused on a number of different
people at first, allowing Bar-Jonah to remain free to do as he liked
for the next three years.

Massachusetts Background

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah Mug Shot from Massachusetts

In compiling background information,
the detectives in Great Falls learned that Nathaniel Bar-Jonah had
been born in Worcester, Massachusetts on February 15, 1957, as David P.
Brown, the youngest of four siblings. While attending first grade in
Webster, Massachusetts, between the age of 5 and 6, Brown had what is
believed to have been his first run-in with authority when he allegedly
choked a female classmate without warning.

In 1973, at age 15, Brown cut letters and
words out of magazines and composed a note that he used to attempt to
entice two young boys from Webster to a cemetery, offering them $20 and
a surprise. In that case, the mother of the two boys declined to press
charges against Brown. She felt it would be best if he received
psychiatric help, and felt that he wouldn’t receive it through the
criminal justice system.

Bar-Jonah, as David Brown, apparently
had his first direct encounter with law enforcement when, at age 18 and
also in Webster, he dressed up as a police officer and nabbed an
8-year-old who was on his way to school. He pleaded guilty to assault
and battery and was sentenced to a year on probation.

Two years later, on September 23, 1977,
at age 20, Brown again disguised himself as a police officer and
enticed two young boys into his car near a movie theater in Shrewsbury.
Once he had them in his clutches, he handcuffed them and drove them to
a tent he had pitched in a wooded area. After ordering the boys to
take off their clothes, he began strangling them. One of the boys,
however, was able to escape and called the police. Armed with a
description of Brown and his car, the police arrested him following a
short chase along one of the state’s less-traveled highways. When they
opened the trunk, they found the other boy, still handcuffed.
Thankfully, he was alive.

Three months later, Brown pleaded guilty
to attempted murder and kidnapping charges stemming from the September
23 incident. Although he was sentenced to 18-20 years at the
Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Walpole, a maximum security
prison, he was later transferred to a medium security prison at
Concord. On June 5, 1979, he was sent for observation to a
state-operated treatment center for sexually dangerous offenders in
Bridgewater, in part because of sexual fantasies that he had shared
with a prison psychologist. At the conclusion of the observation
period, he was sentenced to an indefinite term at Bridgewater.

According to one of the therapists at
Bridgewater, “Brown’s sexual fantasies, bizarre in nature, outline
methods of torture extend… to dissection and cannibalism” and “express a
curiosity about the taste of human flesh.” Brown also reportedly told
one of the doctors at Bridgewater that his interest in torture had been
present for a long time and that the violent fantasies that he
entertained were his main source of sexual stimulation.

From Brown to Bar-Jonah

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

The Great Falls investigators
learned that sometime around 1988 or 1989 that Brown began using the
name Bar-Jonah. In fact, he began calling himself Nathaniel Benjamin
Levi Bar-Jonah, but later shortened the name to Nathaniel Bar-Jonah in
most instances of its use. He apparently told friends and relatives
that he had adopted the Jewish name because he wanted to know what it
felt like to be persecuted and discriminated against. It was also at
about that time that he began petitioning for his release from
Bridgewater. His requests were initially turned down because his
psychiatric evaluations noted his “violent fantasy life, as well as his
risk to the community.”

Approximately two years later Bar-Jonah,
along with two psychologists that had evaluated him, won a hearing
before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Walter E. Steele. After the two
psychologists testified that Bar-Jonah was no longer a threat to
society, Steele ordered him released on February 12, 1991.
Administrative and other issues prevented Bar-Jonah’s release until July
of that year. He would later offer public praise to the two
psychologists that helped win his release.

“I’ve seen God take a hopeless situation
like when all avenues were closed. It seemed…I’d never, ever be
released,” Bar-Jonah later wrote in a letter that he sent to a
newspaper. “Yet God told me I would and I believed Him even though the
evidence of my release was not there. Then totally out of left field I
got 2, yes 2, Christian psychiatrists who believed in me. That was a
miracle in it self [sic] to find 2 Christians in that profession in
Massachusetts. The state had a lot of evidence on their side, yet the
judge sided with me.”

However, he was unable to stay out of
trouble for long. Barely a month later, Bar-Jonah climbed into a car
parked at a post office in Oxford and sat on the 7-year-old boy that
was waiting in the front seat for his mother to return. Although the
boy screamed for help, his cries were barely audible because of the big
man sitting on top of him. When the boy’s mother returned to the car,
Bar-Jonah ran away. He made it to his home and changed his clothes in
an apparent attempt at altering his appearance, but it was futile. Too
many people had seen him running home. Based on his description and
statements from witnesses, he was arrested later that day. He told the
police that he had climbed into the car to get out of the rain, and
that he was planning to ask to be driven home when the driver returned
to the vehicle.

Two weeks later, in a decision that
would later outrage the citizens of Great Falls, Montana, the Worcester
County District Attorney allowed Bar-Jonah to plead guilty to assault
and battery as part of a deal in which he would be sentenced to
two-years’ probation on the condition that he agreed to relocate to
Great Falls, Montana, where he would live with his mother. Within two
years of his arrival in Montana, on December 18, 1993, Bar-Jonah was
charged for allegedly molesting the 8-year-old boy in the case
initially handled by Detective Bill Bellusci.

A Chaotic Investigation

Because parents throughout Great Falls
were now suddenly aware of the potential dangers facing their children
on a day-to-day basis and were naturally more fearful than usual, they
inundated the police department with tips, sightings, theories, and
occasionally clues as to what may have happened to Zach. Taking the
calls wasn’t, of course, nearly as work-intensive as the follow-up
investigations that the calls created. It was the follow-up of all the
false leads or tips that made the investigation chaotic. Typically, if a
disappearance is not cleared up within the first 48 hours or so, not
only does the trail leading to the victim’s whereabouts or to a suspect
become cold but rumors begin pouring in, most of them from
well-meaning citizens. Most of those rumors, unfortunately, which
numbered in the thousands in the Zachary Ramsay case, do not lead
anywhere and often only serve to frustrate the investigators assigned
to the case.

Bellusci worked the case full-time for
the first 30 days or so, and carried Zach’s photo with him wherever he
went, showing it to people he questioned to determine if anyone besides
the initial witnesses recalled seeing the boy. He also showed photos
of Bar-Jonah to many of those people he questioned in an attempt to
determine if anyone had seen the suspect with Zach. At one point he
approached Cascade County Prosecuting Attorney Brant Light about
obtaining a warrant to search the duplex home that Bar-Jonah shared
with his mother located on the 1200 block of First Avenue South.
However, after considering the detective’s request, it was decided that
there wasn’t yet sufficient cause or evidence tying the case to
Bar-Jonah to bring the matter before a judge. There were several other
sex offenders living in Zach’s neighborhood at the time that served to
make it difficult to focus solely on Bar-Jonah as the primary suspect.

An Interesting Lead

Early in the investigation Bellusci
developed a strong lead that showed promise, when a truck driver and
convicted sex offender talked about Zachary to customs agents at the
Montana-Canadian border. By that time Zachary had been missing for
several weeks and word about his disappearance had spread far and wide.
On hearing the truck driver mention Zach’s name, the customs agent
promptly contacted authorities and detained the driver and his rig, a
semi-truck. The FBI searched the vehicle thoroughly, and took samples
of carpet fiber and other materials from inside the cab. Making matters
appear even more promising that they had their man, the truck driver
confessed to kidnapping Zachary the day he disappeared. However,
following considerable investigation, Bellusci learned that the truck
driver had lied to him. None of the evidence seized by the FBI linked
the truck driver to Zach’s disappearance, and Bellusci discovered that
the driver’s truck was broken down and being repaired in Missoula,
nearly 150 miles from Great Falls, the morning that Zachary
disappeared.

Bellusci wondered why the truck driver
confessed to something with which he could not possibly have had
anything to do. A nut case perhaps. Or maybe the driver was someone
looking for attention, a little notoriety. Unfortunately such things
happen in criminal cases and only serve to make the investigator’s work
that much more difficult.

Mount Olive Church attended by both Bar-Jonah and Zachary

There were several important aspects
of the case that troubled Bellusci, however, and would keep Bar-Jonah
as a suspect firmly embedded in the forefront of the detective’s mind.
One was the fact that Bar-Jonah was known to work occasionally in the
area of Zach’s home and school, shoveling snow off of the sidewalks at
the Bitterroot Apartments. Another was the fact that Bar-Jonah and
Zachary attended the same church at various times, and that Bar-Jonah
had spoken to an acquaintance about Zach only days before his
disappearance. Bar-Jonah was also known to drive his mother’s 1997
Toyota Corolla, off-white in color and similar to the vehicle that
witnesses had said almost struck Zachary the morning that he
disappeared. However, it was all circumstantial evidence at that point,
and wasn’t sufficient to obtain a search warrant for Bar-Jonah’s
residence.

Bitterroot Apartments

It should be noted that the police
had not excluded all other suspects in Zach’s disappearance in favor of
Bar-Jonah—at least not yet. For a considerable time, both before and
after Bar-Jonah had come into the picture, investigators also looked at
some of the other offenders in the area. Nor had they yet ruled out
Zach’s mother as a potential suspect, either. However, despite the time
and effort spent on investigating her, there was no evidence to
implicate her and the focus eventually turned back to Bar-Jonah almost
exclusively.

Three Years Later

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

Early on the morning of December 13,
1999, Detective Robert Burton was driving to work at the Great Falls
Police Department when he saw Nathaniel Bar-Jonah walking near an
elementary school. The nine-year veteran of the department recognized
Bar-Jonah from his prior scrapes with the law in Great Falls, including
the 1993 incident in which Bar-Jonah had been charged with sexual
assault for allegedly fondling the eight-year-old boy that he had been
babysitting, and he was now also fully aware of Bar-Jonah’s priors in
Massachusetts. Detective Burton was concerned because he had seen
Bar-Jonah on two other occasions in the same area a week earlier.
Burton contacted his dispatcher and requested that a patrol unit be
sent to the area to make contact with Bar-Jonah to determine what he
was doing in the area of the school.

Bar-Jonah was nearly detained at the Lincoln Elemntary School.

It was still dark outside when
officers Brunk and Badgley, within minutes of being dispatched, arrived
on location in the 400 block of 27th Street South in two
separate patrol cars. When they located Bar-Jonah, Brunk turned on his
patrol car’s spotlight and shined it on the big man in the street.
Bar-Jonah was dressed in a dark-blue jacket similar to that which a
police officer might wear and a knit cap. As he stood illuminated in
the darkness, he kept his hands inside his pockets. Brunk instructed
Bar-Jonah to remove his hands from his pockets and to move in front of
his patrol car. Bar-Jonah, however, ignored Brunk’s request. Brunk made
the request a second time, and Bar-Jonah continued to ignore him. With
Officer Badgley standing by as back-up, Brunk asked Bar-Jonah if he
had something in his pocket. Bar-Jonah hesitated, and then responded
that he was carrying a stun gun.

Lincoln Elemntary School

Following proper police procedure to
help ensure their own safety, the two officers instructed Bar-Jonah to
place his hands on Brunk’s patrol car. With Brunk keeping an eye on
Bar-Jonah, Badgley conducted a pat-down search. In the search Badgley
found two cans of pepper spray, a toy gun, and a badge on Bar-Jonah.
Badgley, following a brief review of Montana statutes about
impersonating a police officer, contacted his shift commander to report
everything that had happened. The shift commander directed him to
release Bar-Jonah pending further review of the statutes and the two
officers’ reports.

Search Warrant

The next day Detective Bellusci, in part
because he had been the investigating officer on the 1993 sexual
assault case against Bar-Jonah in which the charges had been dropped,
received the assignment to follow-up on Brunk and Badgley’s early
morning encounter with Bar-Jonah. Following consultation with the
district attorney’s office, it was decided that Bar-Jonah should be
charged with impersonation of a police officer and carrying a concealed
weapon—the toy gun.

Bar-Jonah’s Mother’s House

On December 15, 1999, Bellusci
prepared an affidavit for a search warrant to search Bar-Jonah’s place
of residence based on probable cause relating to the aforementioned
charges. By this time Bar-Jonah had moved out of his mother’s house and
into a shabby apartment building in a different area of town. Among
the items Bellusci listed in his affidavit that he believed he would
find at Bar-Jonah’s residence was a stun gun, police badges—real or
replicas, police clothing, devices typically used to restrain someone
such as handcuffs, guns, and anything else that could be used as
evidence or construed as contraband. A judge promptly approved
Bellusci’s search warrant, and it was executed that same day.

Bar-Jonah’s Apartment

During the course of the search,
police officers seized a blue police coat, a silver toy revolver, a
badge, a stun gun, a baseball-style hat that had “Security Enforcement”
as its logo across the front, two disposable cameras, two albums with
cutouts of children inside, a coat with a badge inside one of the
pockets, and numerous other photographs and negatives. Interestingly,
the cops also found a pulley on which a rope, cord, or chain could be
connected. The pulley was attached to the ceiling in Bar-Jonah’s
kitchen. Its significance to the case wasn’t immediately known, but it
was photographed and noted just the same. The cops also found a
document that described in detail how to tie a variety of knots, and an
article entitled “Autoerotic Asphyxia.” The possible implications of
such items were, of course, horrific, particularly if children were
involved. At the conclusion of the search, Bar-Jonah was arrested and
charged with impersonation of a public servant and carrying a concealed
weapon.

Two days later Bellusci applied for and
was granted a second search warrant to search for additional
photographs of young children, adults, or both, any undeveloped film,
and any other items of evidence related to the offenses for which
Bar-Jonah had been charged. Among the items found during the second
search was a bulletin board containing numerous pictures, undeveloped
film on disposable cameras, 28 boxes containing miscellaneous papers and
newspaper clippings, and a list of names of Bar-Jonah’s previous
victims. The list also contained the name, “Zachary Ramsey” [sic].

“There are lists of children that you
can just turn page after page after page,” said Brant Light, Cascade
County District Attorney. “He had notebooks where there’s pictures of
children cut out of annual school books and newspapers with their names
underneath—just like collecting baseball cards.”

Among the names on the lists were
several boys from Webster, Massachusetts, three of whom Bar-Jonah was
convicted of abducting in the mid-1970s. Police believed that as many as
half of 54 names on one list were those of children that Bar-Jonah had
grown up with

When all was said and done, there were
at least 3,500 photographs of children found inside Bar-Jonah’s
apartment. When Bellusci had the film developed and prints made, he
found Bar-Jonah and three boys in various states of undress.

Little Boy Stew

Bar-Jonah Jailhouse Recipe

Among some of the other items seized
from Bar-Jonah’s residence during the execution of the search warrants
were encrypted letters, presumably composed by Bar-Jonah, describing
such sick and twisted culinary dishes as “little boy stew,” and “little
boy pot pie,” and the phrases, “lunch is served on the patio with
roasted child” and “Barbecue bee sum young guy.” The coded messages
referenced what police believed were cannibalistic recipes, and talked
about dishes that he had cooked and served to neighbors.

Another Bar-Jonah Jailhouse Recipe

The police also revealed that they
had seized a large section of plywood from Bar-Jonah’s residence during
one of their searches. The plywood had a large smear across it, wide
and indelible, and there was evidence that it had been scrubbed
repeatedly with bleach. It was also determined that the plywood had
been struck numerous times with a sharp object of some kind. Many
people wondered whether the plywood had been used as a cutting board.
They had also seized a meat grinder that had hair inside it. During a
search at one of his previous residences in Great Falls, police dug up
portions of the garage and sifted through nearly two tons of dirt in
which they found 21 fragments of human bones. Although it was
eventually determined that the bones were those of a child, a boy
believed to be between the ages of 8 and 13, DNA analysis showed that
the bones were not those of Zachary Ramsay.

Garage Near Bar-Jonah Residence

When the detectives decided that
they wanted to examine the sewer pipes beneath the house in which
Bar-Jonah had previously resided, they were told by the owner that the
pipes had all been replaced after Bar-Jonah moved out because they were
always getting clogged.

At one point during their investigation,
police uncovered witnesses who claimed that Bar-Jonah had held
cookouts for his mother, neighbors and friends after Zachary Ramsay’s
disappearance but prior to him becoming a suspect in the case. He
served up spaghetti with meat sauce, casseroles, meat pies, and
charbroiled “deer burgers” to his guests. Police alleged that the
source of the meat he had used in his dishes had been Zachary Ramsay.
Bar-Jonah’s diners later told the police that they thought the meat he
had served them tasted strange. His guests told the police that when
they had asked Bar-Jonah why the meat tasted strange, he reportedly
told them that he had gone hunting and had shot a deer.

An analysis of his shopping habits
through study of his financial records indicated that he had not
purchased anything significant at a grocery store for nearly a month
after Zach disappeared. Did that mean something? No one knew for
certain. He could have had plenty of meat and food on hand and hadn’t
needed to go to the store, or he could have gone shopping in that
timeframe and simply paid cash for his purchases.

Great Falls Hardee’s where Bar-Jonah worked.

At varying times during the
timeframe of Zach’s disappearance, Bar-Jonah had held a part-time job
in the kitchen at Malmstrom Air Force Base and another at a Hardee’s
fast-food restaurant in downtown Great Falls. Speculation ran high that
he could have used his position at these two jobs to further get rid
of evidence by feeding it to unsuspecting servicemen and women on the
military base and to hungry customers at the fast-food restaurant, but
there was never sufficient evidence to prove it.

If the implications that Bar-Jonah’s
“menu” items were made with the meat of a young boy as one of the
primary ingredients were not enough, the detectives obtained statements
from people who were close to Bar-Jonah indicating that he had talked
considerably about Zachary Ramsay’s disappearance. He had allegedly
made statements that Zach’s body would never be found because it had
been “chopped up” and strewn about at a variety of locations. The
investigators also found witnesses who would be willing to testify that
they had seen a bag filled with soiled clothing of the size that would
fit a young boy inside Bar-Jonah’s apartment, as well as a pair of
gloves that appeared to be stained with blood.

For reasons known only to Bar-Jonah, the
burly suspect in Zachary Ramsay’s disappearance saw fit at one point
during this period, amid all of the city’s buzz about the alleged
cannibalism being attributed to him, to allegedly taunt Zach’s mother
by telling her that he had “hunted, killed, butchered and wrapped the
meat” of her son.

Another Detective Enters the Case

Because of the growing concern over the
photos of Bar-Jonah and the young boys, Great Falls Police Sergeant
John Cameron was assigned to assist in the investigation. Cameron, who
had extensive experience and specialized training in cases involving
sexual abuse, particularly in the area of interviewing victims,
carefully examined all of the evidence that had been seized from
Bar-Jonah’s apartment and prior residence. Of particular and immediate
interest was the list of children’s names written in Bar-Jonah’s own
handwriting. Cameron and FBI agent James Wilson worked together
analyzing the list, and were eventually able to determine that two of
the names on it were of male children who lived in the apartment
directly above Bar-Jonah’s. Cameron made contact with those children,
and he recognized that the boys’ photographs had been taken with
disposable cameras that had been obtained during the searches of
Bar-Jonah’s apartment. There were photos of the two boys inside his
apartment, on his couch, and on his bed, and were from a roll of film
that also depicted Bar-Jonah lying on his bed, nude, displaying his
penis in various stages of erection. Naturally, Cameron and everyone
else associated with the case were immediately concerned that the boys
had been victimized by Bar-Jonah.

Cameron didn’t waste any time. With
Wilson present, he immediately contacted the boys who lived upstairs
and interviewed them. One of the boys, who was 14-years-old at the
time, confirmed that Bar-Jonah had indeed sexually abused him. He also
provided information indicating that Bar-Jonah had also sexually abused
his cousin, a fact that Cameron and Wilson confirmed a short time
later upon interviewing the cousin.

During the course of his investigation
Cameron learned that Bar-Jonah, a white man who had assumed the persona
of a Jew, had been involved with Christian fellowship youth groups at a
couple of local churches. He had purportedly met some of his alleged
victims at these churches, according to published reports and court
documents. Because he and Zach had attended one of the same churches,
police believed that he had met the child at one of the fellowship
groups.

On July 5, 2000, as a result of Cameron
and Wilson’s work on the case, Bar-Jonah was charged with three counts
of sexual assault, one count of aggravated kidnapping, and one count of
assault with a weapon. He was held at the Cascade County Jail in Great
Falls. Bar-Jonah pleaded innocent to all of the charges.

Cascade County Jail in Great Falls

Meanwhile, Cameron and his
colleagues decided that it would be prudent to search for possible
victims of Bar-Jonah’s in Canada, noting that Great Falls is not a
great distance from the border of the U.S. and Canada.

“We can put him crossing the border
several times and we are working that angle,” Cameron said. “Alberta
and Saskatchewan are the two places I think we were able to place him
in, sometime in the mid-nineties.” However, despite their efforts to
find a solid Canadian connection to Bar-Jonah, the detectives came up
empty-handed.

“This case has really shaken people to
their core,” said Great Falls Police Chief Robert G. Jones. “It is
going to take a long time for things to return to normal.”

Jones’ assessment seemed reasonable
given the fact that much of Bar-Jonah’s life was devoted to a sordid
fascination with torture, dissection, and the consumption of human
flesh. What made it all the worse was that children were always
involved.

The Trial

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

After considerable legal
maneuvering, much of it instigated by Bar-Jonah himself, including
motions to throw out evidence, requests for changes of venue, and
changes in his legal representation because of lawyers who wanted to be
off the case, his trial for the sexual abuse of the three boys in
Great Falls finally got underway on February 20, 2002 after being moved
to a Butte, Montana courtroom.

Cascade County Court House

During the week-long trial,
Bar-Jonah’s lawyers accused the police of coercing statements from the
children involved. The oldest boy, a teenager at the time of the trial,
acknowledged under questioning by one of Bar-Jonah’s attorneys,
Gregory Jackson, that he had gone to visit Bar-Jonah while he was in
the Cascade County Jail. The teenager also testified that he had
written Bar-Jonah a letter while Bar-Jonah was in jail, commending him
for being a friend.

“Nathan,” a portion of the letter read,
“you treated me really nice. You have never harmed me in any way. I
really miss you, big guy. You were like the dad I never had.”

However, an FBI expert testified that
the young witnesses were telling the truth regarding the allegations of
sexual abuse. Testimony was provided that Bar-Jonah had placed a rope
around the neck of one of the boys and had hung him from the pulley in
the ceiling of his kitchen, and details regarding erotic asphyxia were
provided to a stunned jury and a courtroom full of spectators. The
prosecution offered as evidence the photo albums seized from Bar-Jonah’s
apartment that contained thousands of pictures of children, including
several pictures of one of the alleged victims. Other testimony from
the victims was provided about sleepovers at Bar-Jonah’s apartment and
how he had touched them in a sexual manner.

Prosecutor Brant Light characterized
Bar-Jonah as an adult who literally had groomed his victims, spending
months befriending the children so that he could, one day, sexually
abuse them. “This is a man who, at age 42, had only one ambition,”
Light said. “To pursue young boys and molest them.”

On February 25, 2002, the jury found
Bar-Jonah guilty on one count each of sexual assault, aggravated
kidnapping and felony assault. He was found not guilty on one count of
sexual assault, and the jury was deadlocked on another count of sexual
assault. The court declared a mistrial on the final, deadlocked count.

The court determined that Bar-Jonah be
designated a Level III sex offender who poses an extreme danger to
society, and found that his prospects for rehabilitation were virtually
non-existent. The court sentenced Bar-Jonah to Montana State Prison
for 10 years for the aggravated kidnapping conviction, 100 years for
the sexual assault conviction, and to 20 years for the felony assault
conviction. It was ordered that the sentences be served consecutively,
with no possibility of parole.

Bar-Jonah and his attorneys indicated that an appeal was forthcoming.

Wrap-Up

Zachary Ramsay Age Progression

Despite the amount of evidence that
had been amassed against Nathaniel Bar-Jonah in the disappearance and
likely murder of Zachary Ramsay, it now appears that no one will ever
know for certain what happened to the child. Zach’s mother, despite the
fact that Bar-Jonah had told her that he had “hunted, killed,
butchered and wrapped the meat” of her son, told the police and
publicly stated that she did not believe that Bar-Jonah had anything to
do with her son’s disappearance. She had apparently seen a videotape
of a child she believed was her son, supposedly taken at a military
base in Italy. Even though the police had been able to show that the
child on the tape was not her son, Zach’s mother continued to believe
that Zach was still alive. A psychic that she consulted confirmed her
in her belief. Although the police believe that Bar-Jonah had killed
the boy and had disposed of the his remains by feeding them to
Bar-Jonah’s unsuspecting mother and her friends in the form of
hamburgers, spaghetti sauces, stews, and casseroles, a public statement
from Zach’s mother saying that she would testify in court if necessary
that she did not believe that Bar-Jonah was responsible for Zach’s
disappearance, death or both made the case a long-shot for the
prosecution to win.

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

“I did not want Bar-Jonah to be
convicted of a crime that I did not believe he did,” Zach’s mother told
reporters for an Associated Press story. Zach’s mother remains hopeful
that the police would someday reopen the case involving her son, a
move that seems unlikely.

Zachary Ramsay Memorial Plaque

In light of Zach’s mother’s
statement professing her belief in Bar-Jonah’s innocence in the
disappearance of her son, Prosecutor Brant Light asked that the charges
against Bar-Jonah associated with Zachary Ramsay be thrown out. Light
said that because of Zach’s mother’s statements, he didn’t believe that
there was any way that he could win the case against Bar-Jonah. A
judge agreed with him and, in October 2002, all charges against
Bar-Jonah related to the Zachary Ramsay case were dismissed.

In December 2004, the Montana Supreme
Court declined to hear Bar-Jonah’s appeals and upheld his convictions
and sentences for the sexual abuse cases. It seems almost a certainty
that Bar-Jonah will die behind the walls of the Montana State Prison at
Deer Lodge.

DEER LODGE, Mont. — Convicted
sex offender Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, who authorities accused of killing
and cannibalizing a young boy in Great Falls, was found dead in his
cell early Sunday at the Montana State Prison.

“Emergency medical response was initiated
and he was transported to Powell County Memorial Hospital where he was
pronounced dead at 7:06 a.m.,” Moodry said in a written statement.

Moodry said the cause of death is unknown
at this time. She added that Bar Jonah had been in poor health
recently and said an autopsy will be performed by the state medical
examiner to determine cause of death.

The death is under investigation by
Department of Corrections investigators in cooperation with the Powell
County Sheriff’s Office, Moodry said.

57 comments:

I just saw this on IDDiscovery. Must say I thought the mother's reaction to her missing child and the fact that she sided with the defense's lawyers was more than curious. It was disgraceful. It made me wonder if this woman was secretly happy her child was out of her life. It was apparent that Zachery's biological father was a race other than white. It could be that this woman was embarrassed of that and was glad he was gone. We'll never know what's in someone's heart but her behavior was beyond strange.

Mandy, That's the only rationale you could muster? The mother cooperated fully to bring her son home. She still believes he's alive, even consulting with a psychic and has another child at home with her husband. Try again. Don't reflect your racial bias on this woman. She obviously loves her son. She believes him alive, therefore he wasn't killed by this monster. She's not siding with a pedophile. I can't say I blame her. Otherwise,she'd have the mental horror of her child being raped, tortured, killed, butchered, even eaten. Even I preferto think the child is buried somewhere. The possible reality to horrible to contemplate. How could any mother believe so?

What a ridiculous post Mandy!! She doesn't want to believe Bar killed her child because that would be a truly horrific fact to accept. Far better for her to not cope and chose to believe her precious baby is alive somewhere waiting to one day return home. Our mind does everything possible to try to protect us from that which our heart cannot handle-nothing more than common self=preservation during a very traumatic time. Why on earth would she be embarrassed by her husband or child? This wasn't 1850 where the blacks were lesser humans. Her husband is a decorated Air Force Officer and her son, the joy of her life-- she'd have nothing to be ashamed of. Surely that is YOUR own racial hang-up. This mother appeared to do EVERYTHING possible to find her son.

When he was David Brown he was my dads neighbor and use to talk to him and my uncles. Thankfully my meme was strict and never let them leave the yard but David tried. David used to work with my meme too.

When he was David Brown he was my dads neighbor and use to talk to him and my uncles. Thankfully my meme was strict and never let them leave the yard but David tried. David used to work with my meme too.

Oh simple sue, you are so hilarious! Plenty of people would be happy having a mixed child. I know I would rather raise a mixed child that's intelligent, and has compassion for human kind, rather than some "pure bred" piece of shit pedo like this cunt!! This troll is such a weak individual to pray on children this way, he would not dare pull that shit on an older male/female, because he can easily be overpowered by any adult...ahaaa, he's dead now!!

Susan dear, has anyone told you where babies come from? How can you have a mixed child if you're not having sex with someone that would create a mixed child? Other than rape for which you can have an abortion or give the child away for abortion, you will not have a mixed child. Then of course the question becomes you wouldn't be humiliated in having sex but having the child would be the humiliation? Really? My God please help us all.

Everyone Susan is probably just a dumb kid with too much free time and no friends. The kind of kid that burns ants and pulls wings off bugs. Don't let "Susan" bother you. Your remarks towards her/his comments is it they wants. On another note I'm glad that disgusting POS got what he deserved. I'm pretty sure he didn't die of naturalcauses. Hopefully he endured pain and suffering in jail, hopefully some raw justice from the prison guards and he still has Hell to look forward to.

Oh my lord! Ive just watched a documentary on this monster / piece of evil shit / weirdo freak !! Horrid and I was just asking myself how a human can have that level of sickness and digust inside them? The mind boggles and then I read Susans comments and the daft ape above too. Wow unbelievable how small minded some people are!! I mean seriously , race ?? really , just WOW at your sheer ignorance to human mankind! Proud of yourself, I think not. disgusting. Boils my blood.

Susan - if that's really your name. I would be proud as hell to have a child as beautiful and sweet as Zach and his biology would be irrelevant. On the other hand I would be shamed and mortified to have a child as ugly as you.

I actually lived in the apartment next door to him, in the small apartment complex pictured here. It was kitty-corner to Benefis hospital. I was late with my rent one day, and the 'old bat' that ran the place was scolding me about it. I asked her if Bar Jonah lived here. She said yeah; right next door to me. Then she replied "At least he paid his rent on time, unlike you!"

What a crock! The Mother is in denial and cannot wrap her head around the fact that her son was sexually molested then murdered, cut up and eaten. The only way she can survive is to hold on to the hope that her son is still alive. I have bi-racial Grandchildren and am not one bit ashamed. I love them just the same as all my other G kids. How hateful and shameful to say someone is ashamed to have a bi-racial child. This woman has made some poor decisions in her state of horror and grief but her refusal to accept her son as dead is that she is stuck in the denial phase of death. First comes shock & denial, then anger, then bargaining, then grief and sadness, then acceptance. If she cannot get past denial she will never go through the other stages and find acceptance. My uncle stayed in the anger and baraining phase when his boys were killed. He was so miserable 6 years later, he took his own life. Please be more compassionate and understand that her inablity to let go is because she is afraid to grieve. This is a very difficult, miserable state of being. She loved her son so much she cannot move on. She deserves your prayers and empathy. Unless of course you are a narcissist and have no empathy for others. If so, I feel more sorry for you than her.

Jeff Blanchard, as a Montana Native & a mother, thank you for the compliment. I personally was & still am outraged by stunts like that.I have family in Great Falls. I remember the waste of space trial in Butte & the big to do with him in the Deer Lodge Prison near where I live. Im not a horrible person but I have to say I breathed a sigh of relief & was happy that oxygen thief left this Earth & stopped wasting Montana taxpayers $

The stages of grief are shock and denial, anger, bargaining, grief, and finally acceptance. The Mother is stuck in denial. Believe me this is a miserable state of being. It has absolutely nothing to do with being ashamed of her bi-racial child. I have bi-racial G kids and love them just the same as the others. I am never ashamed. It tells me you are prejiduced if you believe that. Also, are you a narrcissist? The have no empathy or compassion for others. She is stuck in the state of denial and as long as she is she will have no acceptance or peace. My Uncle got stuck in anger and bargaining and was so miserable he took his own life 6 years after his children were killed. There has been enough pain, evil, and harm done. Shame on you. Enough already.

As a Massachusetts resident, I'm surprised the folks in Montana didn't do more to hold my commonwealth responsible for letting him loose on your fine state without warning. It wasn't just the judge who made the deal -- either move to Montana or go back to jail here -- but a whole slew of people. And some are still around do the same things. Great work here, though, amazingly complete story as far as the Montana side goes.

A white woman with a half-black child has a very low chance of finding a good mate of her own race and there aren't very many good black men to be had. As we've seen, black men rarely stay with the mothers of their kids and almost never marry them. She might find a black guy looking for a white woman to live off of and bleed dry, but that's not considered a "good" man.

But I don't think this mom had anything to do with the boy's disappearance. The cannibal did it. I think it was just too horrible for her to face and she lost her marbles.

Horrible case. That poor boy. The fear he must have experienced in his last moments is just beyond comprehension.

She was married to a black man in the military. Obviously, she didn't want a white man. I see you are happily retired and have apparently much time on your hands to post your odious opinions. Soon, you'll be dead and so will your opinions. Find something else to do in old age. Life is way too short to come on a website about a horrible murder of a child and basically disparage that child, who, had he lived except for this epitome of white manhood (see the irony?) would have grown up to be - a black man.

Oh shut up "Happily retired". You're obviously old and senile and it's embarrassing to see you making ridiculous racist rants like that. Take your meds, pull up your adult diapers and go back to bed you stupid old fool

Ya know...there's some really sick POS out there. But I was wondering...nowhere in this story about Zachary is the father mentioned. Other than being in the service ( Air Force ) in Colorado Springs. Where was the father during all this? And where is he now?

I don't condone your stupid, ignorant comment Mandy, but I will refute why your claims are false. This woman, mother, is in shock that her son might be dead and the circumstances surrounding his death might be too much for her to handle. 2. If she was ashamed of an interracial affair, then why would she carelessly have a child with a black man and birth his child. She could have had an abortion.

Everyone talks about race here..real issue is that this child was probably murdered by this man..I feel sorry for the Mom who can't except this. I guess if it was my child I would not want to believe it maybe this is what keeps her going everyday my god bless you lady but sooner or later you just need to face facts on what this man done an your child was one of his victims ..God bless your soul for going through what you are going through

Everyone talks about race here..real issue is that this child was probably murdered by this man..I feel sorry for the Mom who can't except this. I guess if it was my child I would not want to believe it maybe this is what keeps her going everyday my god bless you lady but sooner or later you just need to face facts on what this man done an your child was one of his victims ..God bless your soul for going through what you are going through

Does anyone know how the mom is doing now a days? She must be aware of the recent ID show bringing the case to light again - and for the first time for many others. I would like to hear that she's doing well - dealing with this has clearly been incredibly difficult for her and I hope that she isn't sinking into a darker place as time continues to go by.I wonder if she would appreciate hearing from those of us who might be praying for or in some way thinking of her just so she can know she is supported. If my mother were left in this situation I would hope that someone would show her a kind gesture just so she knows others do care. I wouldn't want to overstep my bounds by trying to reach out to her, but if anyone knows her and thinks she might appreciate hearing from someone just wanting to make sure she knows she hasnt been forgotten I would love to send her a card or email or something. I just can't help but picture in fear that she is all alone - hopefully not. It's just such a heartbreaking case.

Just saw show on ID channel called "real dectectives" about this case. And now after reading this and finding out about the other victims, starting in the early 70's, I'm wondering why was this monster even free in the first place??? Could they not see the pattern?? Locked up, get out, offend. Over and over for years. It's just crazy. Then one state wants to be rid of him, so they just throw him in another one? This bothers me to know that our judicial system does those things. Since they wanted to let him go, this man should've been monitored with an ankle bracelet or frequented house checks by authority. Anyways, I feel bad for all the families that were tormented by this individual.

how can this have s#*t to do with race??? Seems like black and white have their haters. I don't believe inter-racial marriage is the best idea in light of ridicule children of bi-racial relationships receive prejudice from haters of black and white skins. The fact you that this became a race issue is a disgrace to all involved. have a loving day,you haters. Maybe the love of christ or god can penetrate you're stone cold hearts. THIS ABOUT A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE BOY ROBBED OF HIS LIFE NOT YOU AND HATE FOR ANOTHER RACE!!!!! PATHETIC:(

his guy makes mfg Robert Theodore "Ted" Bundy look almost normal... I have studied neuroscience & abnormal/clinical psychology extensively & even spoken to a forensic psychiatrist & have an autographed letter & picture of Ann Rule, former Seattle policewoman & the 'godmother' of the true crime genre. You know that the fact remains that although not all sociopaths have or even will become "serial killers", ALL "serial killers" *(a term coined by Robert Ressler, one of the FBI's originators of the BAU "Behavioral Analysis Unit" meaning, deliberately killing 3 or more persons") have ALL been sociopaths. Just like all "peepers" are not nor will they become the prolific, sexual sadist serial killer ... Again, ALL of the latter have been, "peepers" *(DSM-IV Rev refers to the "peeping Tom" or voyeuristic which is a paraphilia ... A definitive psycho-sexual clinical disorder that indicates that the person needs the specific object of the paraphilia(s) they are diagnosed with in order to even become sexually aroused, stimulated & even achieve an orgasm ex. a pedophile needs children in order to become aroused, statistics indicate that once a child is abducted by a pedophile ... that child stands a 74%+ likelihood of being murdered within the first ... 3 HOURS & we've had a knowledge of this statistic for a period perhaps as long as 20 years so YTF WAS,HE EVER LET OUT @ ALL? "Good behavior" my ass ... How many 8-11 year olds are in 'the big house'? Seriously? No shit he , as well as other pedophiles, were not directly involved with children locked up of COURSE they'll have "good behavior"!

Let me clearly understand what I have been reading and listening to. This blog SHOULD be about a poor mother who so sadly lost her child in such a terrible way, but instead they're people on here using this place as a platform to display their racist ideals. That's sad. People like Mandy and this Sue, I won't even take time to discuss. They need to be blogging in Kkk news weekly or something not here. Now, I ran across this story through Investigation Discovery and the actual events and the televized version are very different but the jest of the story is similar. I believe that the mother of Zach Ramsey does not want to believe that her child is dead. Losing a grandchild myself I know that acceptance is hard. However, she really needs closure and I recently read where the father of Zach went to court to declare the child legally deceased and the judge granted him the motion. I am having a hard time understanding how a person as evil as Bar-jonah was able to keep slipping thru the cracks of the justice system. If they had convicted him on just one of his earlier attempts this child could have been saved.

The court did declare Zachary Ramsey deceased. The father had a life insuran'ce policy on Zachary and had paid the premiums all these years. Zachary's mom pleaded with the court not to grant the petition declaring Zachary dead. I live in Great Falls and back about 15 years ago, my son's class went to the jail on a field trip. The first inmate they saw was bar-Jonah. My son who was bout 11 at the time, said bar-Jonah's eyes were cold dark,and scary. He was happy to get out of there.Zachary's mom still thinks that he is alive somewhere!